I often buy pieces which are not perfect. They have been damaged in some way. They may have age spots or imperfections in the paper or water stains. To others they are lessened but I try to look past the imperfections to what once was. Today two aquatint hunting scenes which have been injured through time.

The Chase
aquatint – unknown engraver

These two #foxhunting scenes have seen better days. Both are stained. The wood which was their backing cracked allowing moisture to affect the paper.

Death of the Fox
aquatint unknown engraver

Both have been cut to the plate mark removing the name of the etcher and I have not yet found either image in my searching. Although damaged, they are still exquisite examples of working in aquatint. After being etched they were hand coloured. They were and are in some ways still beautiful pieces. I will continue to research them in the hope of finding who etched them. And now to an etching which I talked about in a previous chapter ‘Art Flowing with Life’ and have now found more information on.

Le Moulin de la Galette
by B Wilard ? @ 1900

What I thought might have been a Dutch street scene with windmill turns out to be an etching of quite a well-known windmill. This windmill is not found in Holland at all but in Paris. It is ‘Le Moulin de la Galette’ on Rue Lepic in the Montmartre district. In the 19th century the Debray family owned the mill and made a brown loaf called a galette and thus the name of the mill. Since then it has had several incarnations. It was a guinguette ( a place for drinking and dancing) and a restaurant. #LeMoulindelaGalette has been immortalized in art by Renior, van Gogh, and Pissarro. This etching depicts the mill as it was at the beginning of the 20th century.